Online Event hosted by the Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research (NNMHR)
Weds 26 April, 14:00pm (GMT)
Register here.
To coincide with the 2023/24 round of our NNMHR New Networks scheme, we invite you to this online discussion and advice event about the ins and outs of running a medical humanities research network. The event will offer advice on the application process and reflections for those applying for this grant, and will also be of general interest to all scholars and practitioners engaged in critical medical humanities research anywhere in the world.
We will be joined by three sets of speakers:
Camille Bellet (Manchester University)
Camille will discuss the recent launch of the Nonhuman Animals in the Medical Humanities Network (https://namhnetwork.wordpress.com/). Based at University of Manchester’s Centre for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine and funded by NNMHR, the NAMHN brings together scholars from diverse disciplines, artists, writers, practitioners, and activists to rethink and revive the role of non-human animals within the medical humanities. She will outline the network’s planned use of an ‘exchange platform’ to support dialogue between scholars, artists, writers, practitioners and activists interested in post-humanist and multispecies approaches as well as how the project’s partners are coordinating their network’s objectives and rationales with its day-to-day practices.
Arya Thampuran (Durham University)
Arya will discuss her roles across a set of research network activities in the medical humanities: her leadership of the Black Health and Humanities network (https://www.blackhealthandhumanities.org/) as it moves from one institution to another, the imminent launch of the Neurodivergent Humanities network, and the research seminars conducted through the Cultures of Madness project. She will focus particularly on how to build a sense of community beyond old models of ‘academic networking’, thinking through how networks can reframe the “research output” in ways that speak instead to collective interests, values, and learning needs from researchers who sit at the intersection of arts, academia, and activism/across different disciplines and fields. She will connect these discussions to the practicalities of care: how to maintain connections across hybrid work-spaces, how to develop non-extractive and collaborative methodologies in the medical humanities, how to engage with material that intersects with researchers’ lived experiences, and how to develop mentorship models for researchers.
Jemma Walton and Kate Errington (Birkbeck)
Jemma and Kate will discuss their ongoing project Broadly Conceived (https://broadlyconceived.wordpress.com/), a growing research network project that began life as a reading group and continues to expand in exciting new directions and opportunities. They will outline how they set out to create a supportive, interdisciplinary space for postgraduate and early career researchers interested in reproductive health knowledge and activism. Their discussion will focus on the importance of social media and creating online presence, as well as how the Broadly Conceived project focuses on collaboration and networking to build insight and connections with academics, as well as activists and other kinds of practitioners.
The event will be chaired by James Rákóczi (Durham/Northumbria), project lead of the Ends of Knowledge network (https://www.endsofknowledge.com/), on behalf of the Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research.
The deadline for the second round of the NNMHR New Networks in Critical Medical Humanities Funding Scheme is Friday 12th May, by 17:00 (GMT). Apply now!
The Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research is delighted to announce four new awards made under our first round of the New Networks in Critical Medical Humanities Funding Scheme.
This scheme attracted a high volume of quality applications: the originality, creativity and intellectual rigour demonstrated by all network proposals point towards an exciting future for critical medical humanities research. A call for a second round of proposals will be issued in early 2023.
The four successful networks will individually launch, or (as some of the networks are expansions of pre-existing projects) re-launch, over this month. Each represents innovative and incisive new directions for the critical medical humanities. All are led by non-hierarchical teams with members at differing stages of their academic careers.
If you are interested in getting involved in any of these networks, then do get in touch. You can do this by messaging NNMHR Network Coordinator Dr James Rákóczi who will happily forward you to the correct network. Or, of course, you can message the individual leads on each network project. Over to you NNMHR networks!
Broadly Conceived
- Kate Errington
- Jemma Walton
Broadly Conceived is a critical medical humanities network of postgraduate students and early career researchers interested in any aspect of reproduction. Established by PhD students Kate Errington (Birkbeck & London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and Jemma Walton (Birkbeck) in October 2021, the network has a blog, Twitter account, and holds monthly online ‘book club’ meetings. Kate and Jemma have already organised a number of other initiatives under the Broadly Conceived banner, including interviewing author Laura Dockrill about her experiences of postpartum psychosis for Birkbeck Arts Week 2022, and hosting an online tour of the Birth Rites Collection with curator Helen Knowles. Broadly Conceived aims to establish a supportive community of repro-researchers as they embark on their scholarly careers, which will enable members to thrive both within and beyond the university.
Ends of Knowledge: Critical University Studies and the Medical Humanities
- Dr Harriet Cooper
- Dr James Rákóczi
Ends of Knowledge is a research network that brings working knowledges from the medical humanities into dialogue with critical university studies. What does it mean to be a practitioner of the critical medical humanities in an era of geopolitical instability, entrenched inequality, and impending climate breakdown? What forms of knowledge can the critical medical humanities produce within university-systems structured by crisis managerialisms and uncaring, unending metrics of evaluation? What kinds of relationship to power and to health are assumed through the invocation of critique and what kinds of social and political agency do academics invested in the critical medical humanities have? The Ends of Knowledge network brings together a community of practitioners loosely identified (or dis-identified) with the (critical) medical humanities. It seeks to think-with, to remain alive to the possibilities of, and to retain agency within, the junctures of the present academy and world. By re-describing medical humanities practices through the material conditions that structure the contemporary academy, it will be committed to addressing challenging questions about the meaning and location of critique, intervention, knowledge-production, and much more — especially as it relates to health-related research and activism. Check out our website, see our upcoming events, join our mailing list, and follow us on Twitter at @EndsKnowledge.
Neurodivergent Humanities
- Dr Louise Creechan
- Dr Louise Creechan
- Dr Ria Cheyne
- Dr Arya Thampuran
- Dr Leni van Goidsenhoven
- Sarinah O’Donoghue
- Alice Hagopian
The Neurodivergent Humanities network will be a safe and generative space that accommodates the diverse, individual needs of scholars working in the humanities, while offering a shared sense of community and support. We will explore and pilot new modes of thinking, being, and doing research in ways that better support our needs, within and beyond institutional structures and practices. The research model we develop will reject the prevailing deficit model in neurodivergence discourse; we seek to reframe best practices as teaching, learning, and research methods that can best support the diverse needs and skills within our community in an academic environment. The network will develop an online hub to share resources, where we can consolidate our experiences of what has worked (and not worked!) in the academic spaces we have encountered, and ultimately create a more hospitable space for us to undertake our research. We will also run regular roundtable workshops to bring together scholars from different fields, to brainstorm collaboratively about better access and practices in academic spaces. Our learnings will eventually feed into a ‘manifesto on the move’, a living, co-produced document of best practices for engaging with research and supporting neurodivergence – both academically and pastorally. To sustain these connections, we will also develop a mentorship model to support one another, one that is aligned with our collaborative, non-hierarchical ethos.
Nonhuman Animals in the Medical Humanities Network (NAMHN)
- Dr Vanessa Ashall
- Dr Camille Bellet
- Dr Bentley Crudgington
- Dr Eva Haifa Giraud
- Dr Renelle McGlacken
The Nonhuman Animals in the Medical Humanities Network (NAMHN) is a transdisciplinary research network that brings knowledges and practices from the medical humanities into conversation with animal studies. What would a science of the medical humanities in which the inclusion of nonhuman animals is no longer just a matter of multispecies care and medicine for humans, but also for nonhuman animals look like? What theoretical and methodological approaches would such a science require? Our goal is to bring together scholars from diverse disciplines, artists, writers, practitioners, and activists to rethink and revive the role of nonhuman animals in the medical humanities. We will create an exchange platform in which all interested members can participate freely and easily. Blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, or many other audio-visual creations stimulating dialogue and reflection will be regularly published there to promote new ways of thinking about and listening to nonhuman animals in the Medical Humanities. We will organise four creative workshops over the next two years, around key themes not yet defined, but chosen in collaboration with network leaders and academic and non-academic partners to give participants the opportunity to think outside the box and challenge both their knowledges and practices. A closing online exhibition inspired by these exchanges will be prepared and staged on the website at the end of 2024 to open the NAMH community to new horizons. We aim to make everyone here feel welcome, valued, supported to develop new scientific visions, innovative and ground-breaking academic networks, and find collaborative writing opportunities!
